Great article on Dubai, if you have time to read.
 

sounds like a hell hole.

it will be wiped away soon once the credit is gone and the oil runs out.

great, great article! I got a feeling this will not work when I was there in 2006. All this wealthy and nice houses and apartments yet you can't even buy a beer or talk freely. You get put in jail for making out on the beach.

I would never buy an apartment there. Dubai has nothing but good weather and shopping and there are many more places that offer the same.

I flew through DXB on my way from Asia two months back and went on their wifi, but couldn't even check out my sites or my sponsor stats because sites were blocked!

keep reading

about all the people kept there as slaves.

terrible

it is a shithole for sure, I met and ex which had been working there for five years, but that secodn story (although very unfortuiante) is total bull, I can give you many similar or even wrose stories from just about any 1st World country in the World

One terrorist incident and their entire tourism industry could dry up.

Yeah i read that the other day. Makes you think, that's for sure...

So sad...The work is "the worst in the world," he says. "You have to carry 50kg bricks and blocks of cement in the worst heat imaginable ... This heat – it is like nothing else. You sweat so much you can't pee, not for days or weeks. It's like all the liquid comes out through your skin and you stink. You become dizzy and sick but you aren't allowed to stop, except for an hour in the afternoon. You know if you drop anything or slip, you could die. If you take time off sick, your wages are docked, and you are trapped here even longer."

Wow, what a great article. Imagine how bad the real estate market will crash there for all the people that thought it was sure bet as an investment. I think if there is a terrorist attack by islamic radicals the place will fall apart even faster. So sad to read about their carbon footprint from all the desalination.

I flew through Dubai a few times and saw guys outside working on the airport. That heat is crazy... I couldn't imagine working under those conditions.

Interesting as well -- NEVER knew --

Sheikh Maktoum built his showcase city in a place with no useable water. None. There is no surface water, very little acquifer, and among the lowest rainfall in the world. So Dubai drinks the sea. The Emirates' water is stripped of salt in vast desalination plants around the Gulf ? making it the most expensive water on earth. It costs more than petrol to produce, and belches vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as it goes. It's the main reason why a resident of Dubai has the biggest average carbon footprint of any human being ? more than double that of an American.

If a recession turns into depression, Dr Raouf believes Dubai could run out of water. "At the moment, we have financial reserves that cover bringing so much water to the middle of the desert. But if we had lower revenues ? if, say, the world shifts to a source of energy other than oil..." he shakes his head. "We will have a very big problem. Water is the main source of life. It would be a catastrophe. Dubai only has enough water to last us a week. There's almost no storage. We don't know what will happen if our supplies falter. It would be hard to survive."

Beat me to it :winkwink:

Thanks for the article. I've been to Dubai twice on vacation. It was absolutely amazing. Always good to hear the other side of the story.

That was one long f-in read. Damn. I wish I was a speed reader.

very interesting. I don't believe all of it but still very interesting. You can tell by how many comments the article has that it really hit a nerve.